New Delhi, April 23: Given his enigmatic personality, it was inevitable that Kevin Pietersen would be handed the reins of the Royal Challengers Bangalore this Indian Premier League season, despite his stint as England captain ending on a sour note. The aim was to use the $1.55 million signing to lead and channelise the resources of a talented side and get them to start winning.

However, a week into the tournament in the rainbow nation, the Bengaluru outfit are still enduring a run of losses, and a sense of deja vu. What makes it unnerving is that two of their bowlers (Praveen Kumar and Anil Kumble) and one batsman (Rahul Dravid) are among the top five wicket-takers and highest run-getters list of IPL-2 — and there is only one win to show for the effort.

As always, the root of the problem could lie at the top. To call Robin Uthappa’s performance as mediocre would be putting it mildly. Having drifted out of the frame from the national side, the need was to tighten up and consolidate his USP as an aggressive strokeplayer at this IPL.

So far, the scores of 3, 20 and 19 aren’t exactly a great advertisement. Neither has his keeness to keep wickets, which has left specialist wicketkeeper-batsman Mark Boucher with nothing to do.

Ray Jennings, the fiery Challengers coach, is adamant though. "Robin is keen to keep wicket and we have been working on his keeping. It puts a new dimension on the side. Maybe it’s a message to Dhoni to be careful because Robin is going to take his position in the Indian side (smiles)," the South African was quoted as saying by the IPL website.

Jennings said Uthappa’s eagerness to keep wicket is driven by his ambition to find a place in the national team as an extra skill would strengthen his case.

"Robin does realise that to make it to the Indian side he has to do something different and he is showing that type of commitment. And the skills that he showed the other night were exceptional. They were international skills," Jennings said.

Honing Uthappa’s wicketkeeping skills keeping in mind the 2010 World Cup seems to be a good long-term plan, but in the short term, it’s not working. He has not simply failed; he has consumed precious balls on the way. This heaps more pressure on the next-in-line batsmen who are in otherwise in run-making form.

Such was the case in Thursday’s game against Deccan Chargers when the Challengers were 38/3 in the 7.2 overs, before Dravid and Virat Kohli got together and carried the side to 160/8 in 20 overs, falling 24 runs short of the target. A little urgency by the top-order and the story could well have been different.

For a team, falling behind the eight ball early on is a huge disadvantage in the Test and ODI formats. In Twenty20, it’s suicide.